ARICHAT: Marcel Richard only learned about Nova Scotia’s looming regulations to protect the province’s 13,000 kilometres of coastline by chance, and he’s worried how the restrictions might hinder his ability to construct a retirement home on a property he bought on the Bras d’Or Lake.
“A lot of people with land on the shore with water frontage are not going to be able to build with this Coastal Protection Act coming into play,” says Richard, who lives in Arichat and was hoping to retire and build within the next year. “My land could be worthless.”
While the regulations aren’t yet set in stone, the province’s Coastal Protection Act could mandate that new construction be no closer than 80 to 100 metres from the shore’s high-water mark and need to adhere to certain height requirements above sea level. Restrictions on armour stone and cribbing also might be part of the mix.
Municipal politicians around the province say they’ve heard little in the way of concerns from their constituents about the act, which was passed in April 2019. But they admit many Nova Scotians simply might not be aware the new shoreline rules are coming.
Premier Tim Houston’s government is tinkering with the final regulations and signaled earlier this year that they will go into effect in the first half of 2023 and perhaps as soon as the end of April.
With the regulations yet to be finalized and approved by cabinet, Environment and Climate Change Minister Tim Halman declined an interview request.
During a media briefing to unveil the province’s climate action plan, he said he’s aiming to get the regulations before cabinet by early 2023 for a vote. He wouldn’t commit to a timeline for their implementation.
“There’s been a lot of work that’s gone into the Coastal Protection Act,” he said. “We’re finishing up our work with municipal units. We’re still having conversations with engineers and planners.”
The delay presents an opportunity for people looking to build on coastal properties to secure their building permits and get shovels in the ground to skirt the regulations.
Municipal politicians canvased by Advocate Media are in favour of restrictions, noting that hurricane-force Fiona was a blunt-force reminder of how vulnerable the province’s coastline is to climate change.
But some worry about the added costs dumped on to municipalities to ensure the regulations are adhered to and the uncertainty of what the final rules will look like.
Richmond County Warden Amanda Mombourquette told Advocate Media she’s aware of property owners like Richard in her district who might be unable to build on their properties.
“I’ve certainly heard from constituents who are just devastated. One person in particular plans on retiring back here and the property he owns will be challenging, if not impossible to build on, when these regulations go through,” she said. “I feel for folks like that very much.”
“But the climate change reality that we are facing is becoming more and more urgent. All we have to do is look at hurricane Fiona. Richmond County fortunately was spared, but much of our coastal areas were not.”
With miles and miles of shoreline on the Atlantic and Bras d’Or Lake to protect, Mombourquette said already financially strapped municipalities like hers aren’t in a position to handle the added burden.
“We’re looking at what’s being proposed in terms of how the protections will be administered, monitored and enforced and it’s looking like all of that work will fall to the municipalities to implement,” she said. “The reality is we just don’t have the resources either financially or in terms of expertise.”
Owen McCarron, Warden for Antigonish County, says he is also concerned about his municipality having to administer provincial regulations. He’s also worried about developers being able to find professionals to determine if their properties are fit to build.
Many coastal property owners aren’t aware of the act and its implications for new builds, he added.
“Sometimes these only become apparent when someone goes to develop their property.”
Pictou County Warden Robert Parker said he sees the need for coastal protection and likes the idea of uniform rules from the province.
“I haven’t heard a lot of people speak against it,” he said. “Maybe it will be different once the regulations come into play and people say, ‘Woah, I don’t like how these qualified people are telling us what we can’t do and what we can do.’”
He doesn’t expect the regulations to address all of Nova Scotia’s coastal erosion woes.
“The one we’ve heard most about is the setback distances,” he said. “But the issue of armour rock and trying to protect your shore in front of your property is a very, very high-cost thing and could be doing as much damage as it does good, especially if you have a neighbouring property. You maybe could afford the armour rock to protect your place, but it could cause more damage to the neighbour’s. Should you be able to damage your neighbour’s property by protecting your own? It becomes a sticky situation.”
Colchester Mayor Christine Blair said, at this point, the act is generating a lot more questions than answers, including the future for adding protection to banks and shorelines.
“The act was proclaimed back in 2019, but so much was put on hold and the regulations are still a work in progress,” she said. “Municipalities are going to be the ones who issue permits for buildings and they’re going to have to have a certain setback. A lot of people use armour rock and that’s another question. Will they be allowed to protect the shorelines and what about inland waters and estuaries that have beaches?”
In last year’s consultation documents, the environment and climate change department proposed that the regulations would permit a landowner to use armour stone on submerged provincial Crown land to stabilize a bank to protect an existing house or cottage within the coastal protection zone that is threatened by erosion. A landowner could repair an existing armour stone installation or install a new one if no shoreline armouring was in place. But they could not armour a shoreline where no structure is threatened by erosion.
Some regions, such as the Halifax Regional Municipality and Queens, already have adapted their own measures to prevent coastal development too close to the coast.
Queens Mayor Darlene Norman said her region adopted bylaws for setbacks and elevation requirements a few months ago.
“We feel it’s important to provide uniformity across the province,” she said. “For example, a developer can presently build in our neighbouring regions with different rules and things on either side of us. We are one coastal province. It just makes sense for protection to the developers and to the environment to have a uniform set of coastal development rules.”
Pictou Mayor Jim Ryan is in favour of the act but also notes the province needs to look at ways of protecting and regulating buildings that already populate the coast.
“If you look at the town of Pictou, like any small community along the shoreline, there are things that we are going to have to do,” he said. “A big part of our waterfront is our downtown core, which consists of a lot of reclaimed land over the last century.”
Asked by Advocate Media about a “phase two” Coastal Protection Act that would address properties with existing structures and buildings, Halman said, “More details will be forthcoming but it’s a key component in us tackling climate change here in Nova Scotia.”